What Should Have Happened
by The Shea-Lea Show
Summary: What I think should have happened at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
1. Chapter 1

_**If I could alter the ending of the Harry Potter series just a little this is how I would do it. **_

_**After he defeats Voldemort, and he is wandering around the room with his invisibility cloak on, well, you're going to have to read the rest to know what happens.**_

They moved Voldemort's body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting him. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore. All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth. After a while, exhausted and drained, Harry found himself sitting on a bench with Luna.

"I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me," she said.

"I'd love some," he replied.

"I'll distract them all," she said. "Use your Cloak."

And before he could say a word she had cried, "Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humding!" and pointed out of the window. Everyone who heard looked around, and Harry slid the Cloak up over himself, and got to his feet.

Now he could move through the Hall without interference. He spotted Ginny two tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother's shoulder: There would be time to talk after he found the two people he was looking for. He saw Neville, the sword of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers. Along the aisle between the tables he walked, and he spotted the three Malfoys, huddled together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was paying them any attention. Everywhere he looked he saw families reunited, and finally, he saw the two whose company he craved most.

"It's me," he muttered, crouching down between them. "Will you come with me?"

They stood up at once and together he, Ron, and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as they climbed.

Happiness would come, Harry thought, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced him like a physical wound every few steps. Most of all he felt the most stupendous relief, a longing to sleep, and a need to talk to Ginny. But first he owed an explanation to Ron and Hermione, who had stuck with him for so long, and who deserved the truth. Painstakingly he recounted what he had seen in the Pensieve and what had happened in the forest, and they had not even begun to express all their shock and amazement when at last they arrived at the place to which they had been walking, though none of them had mentioned their destination.

Since he had last seen it, the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster's study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided looking a little punch-drunk, and Harry wondered whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore.

"Can we go up" he asked the gargoyle.

"Feel free," groaned the statue.

They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top.

He had one brief glimpse of the stone Pensieve on the desk where he had left it, and then an earsplitting noise made him cry out, thinking of curses and returning Death Eaters and the rebirth of Voldemort—

But it was applause. All around the walls, the headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were giving him a standing ovation; they waved their hats and in some cases their wigs, they reached through their frames to grip each other's hands; they danced up and down on the chairs in which they had been painted.

But Harry had eyes only for the man who stood in the largest portrait directly behind the headmaster's chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard, and the pride and the gratitude emanating from him filled Harry with the same balm as phoenix song.

At last, Harry held up his hands, and the portraits fell respectfully silent, beaming and mopping their eyes and waiting eagerly for him to speak. He directed his words at Dumbledore, however, and chose them with enormous care. Exhausted and bleary-eyes though he was, he must make one last effort, seeking one last piece of advise.

"The thing that was hidden in the Snitch," he began, "I dropped it in the forest. I don't know exactly where, but I'm not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?"

"My dear boy, I do," said Dumbledore, while his fellow pictures looked confused and curious. "A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of you. Does anyone else know where it fell?"

"No one," said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction.

"And there's this."

Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron and Hermione looked at it with a reverence that, even in his befuddled and sleep-deprived sate, Harry did not like to see.

"I don't want it," said Harry.

"What?" said Ron loudly. "Are you mental?"

"I know it's powerful," said Harry wearily, "but I was happier with mine. So…"

He rummaged in the pouch hung around his neck, and pulled out the two halves of holly still just connected by the finest thread of phoenix feather. Hermione had said that they could not be repaired, that the damage was too severe. All he knew was that if this did not work, nothing would.

He laid the broken wand upon the headmaster's desk, touched it with the very tip of the Elder Wand, and said, "_Reparo."_

As his wand resealed, red sparks flew out of its end. Harry knew that he had succeeded. He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion.

"I'm putting the Elder Wand," he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, "back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death its power will be broken, won't it? The previous master will never have been defeated. That'll be the end of it."

Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.

"Are you sure?" said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.

"I think Harry's right," said Hermione quietly.

"This wand's more trouble than it's worth," said Harry. "And quite honestly," he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now of only one person, "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."

Harry turned back around to see the painting of Dumbledore smiling at him as if he could read Harry's mind. "Go on, go get your girl." He made a shooing motion at them telling them to leave.

When they reached the doors that lead into the Great Hall.

"Ron, Hermione, could you get Ginny for me? I really need to talk to her…apologize."

Ron and Hermione entered the Great Hall hand-in-hand, scanning the room with their eyes until they spotted Ginny, still leaning with her head on her mother's shoulder, near the middle of the table on the far left side.

They pushed through the crown, attempting to get to Ginny in a quick manner.

"Ginny, someone needs to talk to you," Ron said as Hermione starched out her hand to help her up. Hermione sat down next to Mrs. Weasley and Ron put his hand on Ginny's shoulder and walked her to the Great Hall entrance. Ginny looked at Ron with questioning eyes.

"Over there," Ron whispered and pointed to the stairwell on the left of the door.

Harry stood up and made a quick grin that disappeared in an instant. Ginny walked over to Harry and took his hand while Ron went back into the Great Hall to sit with the rest of his family and Hermione.

"Hello, Harry," Ginny said awkwardly.

"Um, hi, Ginny. I have something to tell you. First…"

Before Harry could speak another word, Ginny kissed him for a fleeting second. "Don't say you're sorry"

"But this is something that I have to apologize for. I couldn't have told you anything at the Burrow before my birthday. I'm sorry I told you, I know I probably scared you half – if not completely – to death," he said as they were aimlessly climbing the steps.

"You did scare me, but I wasn't scared that you wouldn't return alive, I knew you would; I was scared that you would come back injured, hurt, broken beyond repair. I was scared not that I would lose you because you lost your life, I was afraid that you wouldn't come back at all. I was afraid that if you had survived, I was afraid that maybe you wouldn't want me."

Harry stopped short. "Ginny, I will always…want you, dead or alive, injured or perfectly healthy, I will always…want _you_; nobody else, just you." He looked down, not in awkwardness or embarrassment but in ashamedness. "I'm the one who should be worrying about _you _wanting me." Harry released Ginny's hand and sat on the marble staircase.

Ginny looked at him, knowing why he would say something; knowing what he was ashamed of. She sat next to him.

"Look at me, Harry," she said. He didn't move his head, he just closed his eyes. Ginny put her hand under his chin and lifted his face level with her own. "Harry, open your eyes."

Reluctantly, Harry opened his eyes and stared into Ginny's brown eyes.

"Harry, I know why you're ashamed, but don't be. The more you put yourself through that pain, then everyone who died, died helping you, died trying to protect everyone else, while you tried to protect yourself. If you keep shaming yourself, then Tonks, Lupin, Collin, and everyone else who tried to do their part, they died in vain If you keep torturing yourself about their deaths, well then, not only have they died in vain, but so did your parents, Harry. You need to stop being upset at yourself and saying that it should have been you when people die or get hurt while trying to help or protect you. It doesn't help at all." She looked behind her and pointed at the step three above them and said, "_Accio goblet"_ then, as if out of nowhere, there was a shining golden goblet sitting on the step. Ginny grabbed the cup and hovered her wand over the top and said, "_Aguamenti" _ and water streamed into the cup. "Drink up," she said as she handed Harry the goblet.

"I can't just forget…"

"I'm not telling you to forget them," Ginny said, just before Harry took a drink of the water. "I want you to remember them, but I don't want you to punish yourself for their deaths."

"Not meaning to change the subject or anything, but I didn't know. . ."

"I know what you're going to say. Don't insult my intelligence, Harry."

"Sorry," he said as he drank the last two sips in one. "I can't remember them and _not_ think about how and why they died."

"If there is one thing that I could get through that stubborn skull of yours, it would be that if you just remember them as being alive, you won't think about how or why they died. I love you, Harry, and I don't want to see you in pain."

Harry sat the empty goblet and held one of Ginny's hands with both of his own. "Ginny, I really don't know how to say this, but I feel the same way about you. I don't want to hurt you, Ginny."

"How would you hurt me?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure, over time, I will hurt you."

"Harry, the only way you could hurt me is if you left me. I don't want you to leave."

"I don't want to leave. I want you… us to be happy."

Harry stood up and pulled Ginny up off of the step and they started walking upward again.

"Harry, can I ask you something?" Ginny asked as they reached a large window that had been busted out.

"_Reparo_," Harry said and pointed his want at the window then he opened it so the breeze could flow through and he leaned against it, still holding Ginny's hand firmly in his. "You wanted to say something?"

"Are you going…um, do you have any interest in graduating now?"

"I haven't decided yet. As a matter of fact, I haven't really thought about it. Why?"

"I was just wondering. It seems as if you would have to ask someone's opinion first."

"And whose opinion do you think I would have to ask?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore," Ginny whispered, looking down at the forest's edge.

"Oh, well, yes I guess I would want to ask his opinion. I have a question."

Ginny nodded and looked into his green eyes.

"Do you want me to return, to join you in the final classes here at school?"

"Yes," she said gently. "I want you to come back; but not for my good, but for your own."

"I want to give you something," Harry said as he released Ginny's hand and rummaged in the pouch around his neck. "I found it in my closet the day before I left my Aunt and Uncle's. It was my mother's and she left it in my possession when she died. Hold out your hand," he said when he finally found it at the bottom of the little sack.

It was a silver ring with a medium sized emerald in the middle and a small diamond on both sides. Harry slipped it onto Ginny's finger and put his hand on the back of her neck and kissed her. She threw her arm around Harry's neck. Harry put his other hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer to him.

When they broke apart, Harry grabbed Ginny's hand and ran down the steps and made tow turns. They were again in front of the gargoyle in front of the revolving stairs leading to the headmaster's office.

"Stay right here, Ginny. I have to…um…I'll be right back."

Harry nearly ran up the steps as they turned.

He looked at the portrait behind the headmaster's chair. The man in it was looking at him with a questioning look.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"I have a question, sir. Should I come back next year and finish my seven years?"

"That is all up to you, Harry. I trust you will make a good decision. I trust I will be proud."

"Thank you, sir. And, the ring you told me that mom left to me, I gave it to Ginny."

"I'm sure if your mother were here, she would be proud and jubilant."

"Thank you, sir. Do I have your blessing then, to marry her?"

"My boy, you have my blessing in whatever you do. Tell Ginny 'hello' for me."

With a smile on his face, Harry ran down the spiral steps. When he got to the bottom, Ginny was waiting with a curious look on her face. Harry got down on his knee and took Ginny's hand.

"Ginny, I will come back to school next year if you agree to marry me when we are finished with school."

Ginny had a half joyful and half surprised look on her face. "Yes," she said before thinking about it any more.

Harry got up and kissed her then took her hand and they walked back down to the Great Hall.

Everyone was overjoyed when Harry and Ginny walked into the Great Hall with interlaced fingers and the emerald engagement ring placed on Ginny's finger. They went to sit next to Ginny's family and Hermione.

"So, Ron, are you coming back next year? You know, so you can finish your training."

"I don't know, Harry. Are you?"

"I told Ginny if she would marry me I would, so I guess I am."

As Harry finished his sentence, Ginny pulled her left hand from under the table and showed Ron and Hermione the ring.

"Let me see that," Mrs. Weasley said as she heard the word "marry." She grabbed Ginny's hand and examined the ring. "Harry, how did you get this?" she asked in shock. "If my daughter is wearing a stolen…"

"Mrs. Weasley, Dumbledore gave it to me my first year here and I had kept it with me ever since. It was my mother's and she had left it to me. In fact, there was a possession paper coiled on the inside of it. Here, you can read it for yourself; it and the note that she wrote me." Harry rummaged around in his pouch again and pulled out two pieces of fragile-looking parchment.

Hermione read aloud.

"_This ring is now property of Harry James Potter; once property of James Potter given to his wife Lily Potter as an engagement ring."_

She stopped to wipe a tear from her eye and read the note.

"_My Dearest son,_

_I am so sorry I wasn't around to watch you grow into the wonderful wizard and man I know you are today. I gave this ring to Dumbledore when you turned a year old. Times were hard and people were being killed by Voldemort. If you are reading this note, then you have survived his killings and I have not but I am still watching over you."_

Hermione handed Ron the note as she started sobbing.

"_I instructed Dumbledore and McGonagall to leave this in your possession either in his will to give you or when you arrived at Hogwarts. It is a wonderful school, Harry, and I know you will love the teachers there. _

"_Your father and I would like to make one request, we don't want you to give this ring to just any person, Harry; we want you to give it to the person you love the most and want to be with forever. If you are reading this, we probably haven't lived past your second birthday and you are living with your Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and I want you to be good to them. (Your father says if you can threaten them with magic without using it that would be fine with him – he never liked my sister much.)_

"_We love you and hope you make very good friends while you are at Hogwarts. We wish you the best of luck in life – and if Voldemort comes back to get you, don't let him intimidate you._

"_Signed Lily and James Potter."_

The whole letter was written in Lily's perfect handwriting, except for where James signed his own name.

Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley were in fits of tears and frequent sobs and it was a simultaneous movement how Harry, Ron, and Mr. Weasley put their arms around them to comfort them.

After the crying fits were over and Harry had put the pieces of parchment back into the pouch, people started crowding around the table to congratulate and thank Harry for his engagement and his saving of everyone's lives.

~~~Seven years later~~~

"Harry, could you come here for a second? I need to tell you something…it's important," Ginny called from the large master bedroom to her husband who was writing a letter to his godson.

"I will be there in a minute dear. Let me finish this up." He wrote another line before Ginny appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down at him with intense eyes.

"Harry, now…please."

Harry put down his pen, stood up and walked up the stairs. "You have my complete attention. What do you need?" he asked as he wrapped his arm around Ginny's waist and she led him into the bedroom.

She pointed to a small opened box on the bed. Harry looked as if he had just had just been his with a confundus charm.

"Well…what…um…what…?"

"Harry, I'm…I'm pregnant."

No Harry looked like he had been hit by a stunning spell. "I…I'm speechless. I really don't know what to say."

"You aren't upset with me?"

"Why would I be bloody upset at you? Are you barking mad, woman?"

"Well, I don't know. You never mentioned anything about children and…"

"I'm happy for us, dear. I want children. I love you, Ginny."

"I love you, too."

_**I am sorry it's so lone but I didn't want to stop it with two chapters and I really liked where I ended the Seven Years Later part. I hope you will try and search for the epilogue so you will know what happens or maybe you already know. Thank you. Please review.**_


	2. New Pen Name

CHANGED MY PEN NAME

Hey everyone, I was getting really tired of my Pen Name so I changed it. I didn't want you to freak out and wonder who was stealing my stories.

As you can tell my new Pen Name is ZoeyAradiaMystique (Zoey meaning life, Aradia is unknown and mystique obviously being mysterious).

I hope you guys don't mind the change.

Stories will be updated with continued chapters soon.

Thank you.


	3. NOTICE

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW:

Not only has my user name changed, but I have deleted two of my stories. I didn't do much with those stories and I didn't know where to go with them.

I also have a poll posted. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go to my profile and vote. Underneath the poll (in my profile) I have explained each choice in detail that way you know exactly what there is to vote for.

I will update soon.

Thank you very much, everyone.


	4. ANNOUNCEMENTS

I'm sure you are tired of announcements but I just had to tell you.

I have a poll up and I really want a lot of votes. The more people vote, the happier I am, the happier you are, and the happier the elves in my sister's closet are.

Question: So, I have a question for my avid readers and fans. I have story ideas that you need to vote on. Pick your favorite idea AFTER you read more about the choices in my profile.

Choices:

Write a Vampire Diaries fiction with Damon and a new girl in town. (More info in my profile below, just like the other two.) ~ 0 votes

I write a Harry Potter fanfic about Severus Snape and Lily Evans when they were young. (Again, more specific in profile below.) ~ 3 votes

I write a story about the Vampire Diaries. It will be hard to explain right here so explanation is in profile ~ 0 votes

Most authors would be overjoyed to know that it is a unanimous vote but I need the top two choices.

Here is some more info about each choice and what I am doing for the top two ideas chosen (this information is also on my profile page).

I write a Harry Potter fanfic about Severus Snape and Lily Evans when they were young. The idea behind this is to do a story about Snape and Harry's mom growing up and falling in love and getting married. Lily never likes James very much in the beginning in the books and Snape and Lily were good friends so I thought it would be cute to do a story where Snape never called Lily a mudblood and Lily never falls in love with James and never gets killed by Voldemort. What will happen? This story could go on for ages if I wanted it to.

Write a Vampire Diaries fiction with Damon and a new girl in town. This one is pretty self explanatory. Damon is torn between this new girl, Elena, and Kathrine.

SPOILERS: I write a story about the Vampire Diaries. It will be hard to explain right here so explanation is in profile below. This will be mostly about Elena. Stefan and Damon are killed by the believed to be dead Kathrine. Story will take place after The Fury. But, it happens as if Elena wasn't a vampire when she pushed Kathrine into the sunlight and basically kills her. Kathrine is somehow able to kill Elena in the process (will be explained in story). Because Elena seems to be dead, Stefan steps into the sun and kills himself while Damon puts his ring back on and runs. Neither remembered that she had both of their blood in her system to be able to complete the change. The books following The Fury never happen and the story I will write will follow Elena as she became a vampire and goes through her life and attempts to find one of the brothers, not knowing that Stefan killed himself. I can't give away the rest of the story so I can't continue but hopefully this is a good preview.

So, whichever gets the highest percentage will be started ASAP and the second will become a Christmas present, which is about the time one of the three of my current stories will be finished. The third idea will be junked or put in a file for next year. Come on guys, this should be exciting for you. You get to pick what story you want first.

Please, please go to my page and vote. Thank you.


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